Army Maj. Michael Stockin, 38, is a doctor charged with molesting soldiers and veterans during medical appointments at Madigan Army Medical Center at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington. He faces 47 counts of abusive sexual contact. (Abner Guzman/U.S. Air Force)

Three more men filed complaints against the Army seeking $5 million each for failing to protect patients from misconduct by a military doctor facing a court-martial in one of the largest sexual abuse cases in the service’s history.

Army Maj. Michael Stockin, 38, is scheduled for a court-martial in January on charges that he sexually abused 41 patients at Madigan Army Medical Center on Joint Base Lewis-McChord, which is 50 miles south of Seattle. He is scheduled to plead guilty in an agreement with the Army, according to online court records, though the service and Stockin’s attorney have not said to which charges the agreement applies.

Stockin, an anesthesiologist and pain specialist, is accused of 47 counts of abusive sexual contact and five counts of wrongfully viewing another person’s private area. If convicted of all charges, Stockin could face a maximum penalty of more than 300 years in prison.

The doctor is no longer seeing patients but is not in pretrial confinement as he awaits his court-martial, according to the Army and court documents.

The three new complaints filed last week are among 18 administrative complaints about Stockin submitted under the Federal Tort Claims Act. Each claim asks for $5 million in compensation, for a total of $90 million to date.

Under federal law, an agency can be sued in federal court only after complaints are filed and rejected.

“Our civil case is separate and apart from the criminal case, but I will say that if Dr. Stockin pleads guilty, my clients will be grateful to see him held accountable in the criminal case,” said Christine Dunn, an attorney with Sanford Heisler Sharp McKnight, a Washington, D.C., law firm representing the 18 complainants. “But from our perspective, the Army is also at fault here, and we hope that the Army will ultimately take responsibility for its role in allowing it to happen.”

Army Maj. Michael Stockin, an anesthesiologist and pain management specialist, arrived at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Wash., in July 2019. (MDedge News)

The Army declined to comment on the complaints filed, citing them as pending litigation.

Each claim filed with the Army follows a similar narrative and was written under pseudonyms. The service members and veterans — all men — accused Stockin of asking them to remove their clothes and then touching their genitalia under the guise of medical treatment.

The contact was not medically necessary, Dunn said.

One man wrote he went in for neck and back pain and Stockin asked him to disrobe and fondled his groin area.

“I was confused why Dr. Stockin did not examine any other parts of my body, including my back,” the man wrote in the complaint.

He blamed the Army, which he said “owed a duty of care” to patients at Madigan. He said he was instructed to see Stockin after February 2022, which is after the Army has said it barred Stockin from seeing patients.

“The Army breached that duty by negligently hiring and negligently supervising Dr. Stockin,” he wrote. “The Army’s negligence directly caused me to be sexually assaulted by Dr. Stockin.”

Another man wrote of a similar experience and said it left him with severe anxiety regarding doctor appointments, including those for his children.

Stockin joined the Army in 2013 and was stationed at Tripler Army Medical Center in Honolulu and Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., and he was deployed to Iraq. He was transferred to Lewis-McChord in July 2019.

Army prosecutors and criminal investigators said they have launched inquiries into whether Stockin had abused patients at his earlier posts, but none have been reported.